Three loops and one big lap
Fifty nine to sixty miles built from the two routes of the Rossendale Round the Hills Walk, run back to back with no overnight stop.
The route in numbers
- Total distance
- 59 to 60 miles
- Small loop
- 14 miles from Limey Lane, run three times
- Big route
- 18 miles from Marl Pits, run once
- The maths
- 14 + 14 + 14 + 18 = 60 miles
- Terrain
- Pennine moorland, farm tracks, field paths and lanes
- In darkness
- Roughly 9 hours, laps one to three
- Navigation
- Head torch, known routes, support runners
Route overview
Small loop
1 14 miles
Small loop
2 14 miles
Small loop
3 14 miles
Big route
18 miles
3 x 14 mile loops + 1 x 18 mile route = 59 to 60 miles
Lap by lap
Laps one to three: the 14 mile Limey Lane loop
The short route of the Round the Hills Walk, run three times in succession from 6:00pm on the Saturday. The first lap finishes around dusk. The second and third are run in full darkness, which is where the real difficulty of this challenge sits.
Running the same loop three times is a particular kind of mental test. There is no new scenery to distract you, and you arrive back at the start twice knowing you have to go straight out again. Ultra runners generally find looped courses harder than point to point ones for exactly this reason.
- Lap 1, from 6:00pm, mostly in daylight, 14 miles.
- Lap 2, from around 9:30pm, full dark, 28 miles cumulative.
- Lap 3, from around 1:00am into first light, 42 miles cumulative.
The final leg: the 18 mile Marl Pits route
The full Round the Hills Walk route, starting from Rossendale Sports Club, Marl Pits between 7:00am and 8:00am on the Sunday morning alongside the walkers taking part in the main event.
Forty two miles will already be in Tessa's legs by the time this starts. In a normal year, runners complete this route in around three hours and walkers take six to eight. Coming to it off a sleepless night and two marathons of hill running is a different proposition entirely.
The terrain
Rossendale sits in the South Pennines, and both routes cross open moorland, farmland and the edges of the valley towns. In practical terms that means:
- Rough, uneven ground and loose stone underfoot.
- Real climbing, repeated on every lap.
- Gates, stiles and field boundaries that break rhythm.
- Ground that holds water, so wet feet from early on.
- Exposed sections where the wind has nothing to stop it.
Rossendale was named the number one walking area in England and Wales, which tells you the paths are good. It does not make them flat.
Running through the night
Sunset in Rossendale in early September falls at around 7:45pm and sunrise at around 6:20am. That leaves roughly nine hours of genuine darkness in the middle of this challenge.
Night running on moorland compresses your world to the width of a head torch beam. Depth perception goes, familiar paths stop looking familiar, and the cold sits on you in a way it never does in daylight. It is the reason a 60 mile route like this one is considerably harder than the same 60 miles run across two days.
Thinking of joining a section? Support runners are genuinely welcome, but it needs arranging in advance so that the logistics work and nobody is left standing on a hillside at 2:00am. Get in touch first.
